A tender, touching and tense relationship is chronicled in the French drama "Domain" (Domaine), directed by Patric Chiha. The film, which debuted at the Venice International Film Festival in 2009, opened in France in 2010. "Domain" began a week-long run last Friday at the San Francisco Film Society Cinema.
Sexual tension between Pierre, a gay 17-year-old boy (Isaïe Sultan) and his older aunt Nadia (Béatrice Dalle) percolates throughout their unusually close relationship. Pierre, who has friends his own age, spends all his time outside of high school with Nadia, a mathematician who is an alcoholic. Each day after school is out Pierre gets a call from Nadia. He'll be there in 30 minutes, he says. He always is. Pierre's mother is worried about him always being with the sister she is estranged from. Nadia rambles, talks about her sexual encounters with a former husband. She has a long-time boyfriend whom she has a love-hate relationship with, shooing him away when she sees fit. Nadia's dependency on Pierre arises from her loneliness, her condition, and possibly a subconscious desire to have sex with him.
Pierre, a quiet lad, admires and has genuine love for Nadia, but sees the handwriting on the wall long before she does. "Domain", a gloomy, absorbing conversation piece, is less a coming-of-age story than a sneak preview of what later life struggles are like. Through Nadia's war with alcohol it is Pierre who grows. He knows the score, and her future, and Nadia, who is about 30 but looks like a much-older version of 50, wallows in the crumbling mechanical shell of her mind, wrecked with booze. Nadia is isolated by precise, orderly deteriorations, a woman who has mentally expired long before she has physically crumbled. Ms. Dalle is haunting and most powerful in these unsettling moments where intellectual discourse is breaking down in an almost onomatopoeic fashion.
Mr. Chiha's film wears a golden earthy richness and cinematic looks Gordon Willis would be most proud of. There's a shadowy, heavy feeling that pervades "Domain", full of atmosphere and sexuality. Episodes of opportunity for male and female characters to physically interact are like punctuations, breathing spaces from the intense, uncomfortable and troubled world Nadia lives in. Ms. Dalle brings an edginess and unselfconsciousness to Nadia without inviting a pitying, woe-is-me mentality to a woman who in many ways is still Pierre's age. Pierre, of course, is the old soul trapped in an adolescent body, and Mr. Sultan plays him with freedom, caution and maturity. Pierre's still a young boy but he has adult sensibilities.
"Domain" isn't especially unfamiliar, noteworthy or memorable, and when it abruptly ends where it does it isn't too much of a surprise, although the film could have ended at least 20 minutes earlier. The film's sole strengths lie in some of Mr. Chiha's dialogue, particularly as spoken by Nadia, and in the lead performances by Mr. Sultan and Ms. Dalle, who make for a very good pair on the big screen. Otherwise, "Domain" plays like a diary in Pierre's earlier life and times, such times lived by a man who grows up very fast, not unlike the young men in films like "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and others.
--At the San Francisco Film Society Cinema
With: Alain Libolt, Raphaël Bouvet, Sylvie Rohrer, Udo Samel, Tatiana Vialle, Manuel Marmier.
Original review here
"Domain" (Domaine) is not rated by the Motion Picture Association Of America. It contains moments of sexuality, most of which are discreet. The film's running time is one hour and 48 minutes.
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